London Stock Exchange Group plc: Interim results

London Stock Exchange Group PLC

01 August 2024

 

London Stock Exchange Group plc

Interim results for six months ended 30 June 2024

Delivering on all fronts in H1: consistent growth, improving profitability, strong product pipeline and significant shareholder returns

David Schwimmer, CEO said:

"We have finished the first half strongly, maintaining our momentum in Q2 with every business line contributing to revenue growth. This reflects the strength of our proposition, the improvements we have made to our products and the depth of our relationships with customers.

"Our high pace of innovation continues. We have made significant enhancements to Workspace, leading to several competitor displacements. We are building on our leadership in data, expanding our pricing and reference content substantially and adding over 70 new feeds to our low-latency data coverage. The recent strategic partnership with Dow Jones also brings leading breadth in news coverage. In FTSE Russell, we are seeing strong demand for our differentiated climate transition and multi-asset solutions. Our Post Trade Solutions businesses are gaining momentum, particularly in FX forwards optimisation. Tradeweb had an outstanding first half, growing share in a strong marketplace. Our partnership with Microsoft is approaching commercialisation as the first product becomes more widely available by year-end.

"We are also delivering efficiency improvements, with underlying margin improving year-on-year despite ongoing investment, and we expect this trend to continue. We look forward to further progress in the second half of the year, and are reiterating all of our medium-term guidance."

Six months ending 30 June, reported	2024 £m	2023 £m	Variance %		Constant currency variance %	Organic constant currency variance %
Total income (excl. recoveries)	4,204	3,990	5.4%		7.6%	7.1%
Recoveries1	185	189	(2.1%)		0.6%	0.6%
Total income (incl. recoveries)	4,389	4,179	5.0%		7.3%	6.8%
Reported
EBITDA	1,944	1,774	9.6%
Operating profit	812	745	9.0%
Profit before tax	693	662	4.7%
Basic earnings per share	64.7	77.2	(16.2%)
Dividends per share	41.0	35.7	14.8%
Adjusted2
Operating expenses before depreciation, amortisation and impairment	(1,759)	(1,718)	2.4%		6.4%	5.7%
EBITDA	2,040	1,888	8.1%		8.4%	8.4%
EBITDA margin	48.5%	47.3%
Operating profit	1,563	1,434	9.0%		8.8%	8.9%
Adjusted earnings per share	174.0	160.9	8.1%

Financial highlights
(All growth rates relate to H1 and are expressed on an organic, constant currency basis unless otherwise stated)
·	Total income (excl. recoveries) up 7.1%; up 5.4% on a reported basis
·	Good momentum in Q2: Total income (excl. recoveries) +7.8%
·	All divisions performing well: Data & Analytics +4.3%, FTSE Russell +11.5%, Risk Intelligence +11.5%, Capital Markets +17.4%, Post Trade stable after strong 2023
·	Annual subscription value (ASV) up 6.4% at June 2024, in line with guidance
·	Improving profitability: Adjusted EBITDA margin 48.5%, +120 bps. Underlying performance +50 bps and FX-related impacts +70 bps
·	Adjusted net finance costs of £112 million, mainly reflecting the cost of refinancing in the current higher interest rate environment and higher net debt
·	Adjusted EPS +8.1% to 174.0p reflecting strong income growth, good cost control and a lower share count
·	Basic EPS -16.2% on a reported basis due to increasing non-underlying amortisation from the Refinitiv acquisition and a higher reported tax rate
·	Free cash flow up 29% to £761 million; leverage (net debt to EBITDA) 2.0x

Strategic progress and outlook
·	All medium-term guidance reiterated: mid to high single digit organic revenue growth annually, accelerating after 2024; underlying EBITDA margin to increase over time; capex to decline to high single digit % of income ex recoveries over time
·	Strong cadence of product innovation: multiple Workspace enhancements, significant expansion of low-latency feeds, new climate transition and multi-asset index products, initial traction in Post Trade Solutions
·	Dow Jones content agreement creates leading news offering across LSEG platforms
·	Joint product development with Microsoft on-track: first products in general availability in H2
·	Tradeweb entering attractive corporate segment with acquisition of ICD
·	Significant shareholder returns: £1 billion returned via buybacks in H1, directed at holdings of Blackstone consortium. Interim dividend +14.8% to 41.0p per share3, to be paid on 18 September 2024 to all shareholders on the share register at the record date of 16 August 2024. The ex-dividend date is 15 August 2024.
·	Share overhang eliminated with Blackstone consortium holdings now under 2%

This release contains revenues, costs, earnings and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the six months ended 30 June 2024. Constant currency variances are calculated on the basis of consistent FX rates applied across the current and prior year period (GBP:USD 1.243 GBP:EUR 1.150). Organic growth is calculated on a constant currency basis, adjusting the results to remove disposals from the entirety of the current and prior year periods, and by including acquisitions from the date of acquisition with a comparable adjustment to the prior year.  Within the financial information and tables presented, certain columns and rows may not add due to the use of rounded numbers for disclosure purposes.

¹ Recoveries mainly relate to fees for third-party content, such as exchange data, that is distributed directly to customers.

² The Group reports adjusted operating expenses before depreciation, amortisation and impairment, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and impairment (EBITDA), adjusted depreciation, amortisation and impairment, adjusted operating profit, adjusted basic earnings per share (EPS) and free cash flow. These measures are not measures of performance under IFRS and should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, IFRS measures of financial performance and liquidity. Adjusted performance measures provide supplemental data relevant to an understanding of the Group's financial performance and exclude non-underlying items of income and expense that are material by their size and/or nature. Non-underlying items include: amortisation and impairment of goodwill and other purchased intangible assets, incremental amortisation and impairment of the fair value adjustments of intangible assets recognised as a result of acquisitions, tax on non-underlying items and other income or expenses not considered to drive the operating results of the Group (including transaction, integration and separation costs related to acquisitions and disposals of businesses), as well as restructuring costs.

³ ISIN: GB00B0SWJX34; TIDM: LSEG

H1 Interim results investor and analyst presentation, webcast and conference call:

David Schwimmer (Chief Executive Officer) and Michel-Alain Proch (Chief Financial Officer) will host a webcast presentation on LSEG's 2024 interim results for analysts and institutional shareholders today at 10:00am (UK time). This will be followed by the opportunity to ask questions via the conference call line.

To access the webcast or telephone conference call please register in advance using the following link and instructions below:

Webcast:

https://www.lsegissuerservices.com/spark/LondonStockExchangeGroup/events/b8c830f5-e9ae-41f0-9a5c-241701954862

Conference call:

https://registrations.events/direct/LON188024

Presentation slides can be viewed at http://www.lseg.com/investor-relations

The interim results for the six months ended June 2024 have been submitted in full unedited text to the Financial Conduct Authority's National Storage Mechanism and will be available shortly for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism.

The results are also available in full on the corporate website at https://www.lseg.com/en/investor-relations/financial-results/.

Contacts: London Stock Exchange Group plc

Media:

Lucie Holloway / Rhiannon Davies
[phone]

[e-mail] 

Investor relations:

Peregrine Riviere / Chris Turner
[e-mail]

Additional information can be found at www.lseg.com

 

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